The Ahornspitze from Zillergrund

Published on 2024-6-30 by Michael Stanton

A few years ago I hiked up the Ahornspitze over two days. I had metal plates in my foot from the accident the summer before. I remember it being a real struggle on the downhills especially.

It was tough to process that it was so much harder to enjoy a full day of climbing up and down a mountain. A big part of my life became thinking about and trying to recover, ultimately leading to the CDT hikes of 2022 and 2023. There were five stages in the journey to recovery:

1. first, being able to walk at all.
2. Then, learning that I could do bigger days as long as terrain was steep and not flat.
3. Getting the metal plates out -- so much better after that!
4. In 2022, training for and then walking the CDT gradually overcame the pain and fear around long flat miles.
5. In 2023 on the CDT, my foot bothered me so much less than the year before.

Coming back to the Ahornspitze and doing the whole thing in one go from the Zillergrund valley was a natural thing to come back to. Before the accident, a big hiking day for me involved 2000+ meters of climbing as a matter of course. After the accident, it became something to wince about. I'm happy to restore the "big day" to its former place in my hiking life.

A hot day

Saturday was a real heat wave. I was hiking up around 8:45 to the sound of weed-eater machines. Happily, the whole trail was being cleared of brush. Every now and then I'd run into a couple of guys working on a section. It was fantastic because it was so necessary! I'd parked by the tunnel at the bottom of the valley, and hiked up steep trail to the Ahornach Alm. From there I continued steeply to the upper Ahornach Valley with its abandoned farmhouse, then began traversing up to and across the ridge to the next valley with the Edelhütte.

Looking back on the brush cleared just minutes before!

In the Ahornach Valley

I got a sunburn in here because I kept my shirt off until about noon in the relentless uphill. At the Edelhütte I saw a man in heavy mountain-boots so I asked him how the trail to the summit was. He said it was closed so he didn't go. That spooked me, so I rushed up and away from the hut before a policeman could stop me.

On the way up to the big snowfield, I met two Americans from Atlanta. One is getting his PhD in Aerospace, amazing! The other is going to law school. I told him how impressed I've been with lawyers lately, fighting on behalf of Jack Phillips ("Bake the Cake, Bigot!").

However the friendly smile disappeared and the face shut down. I would have run if I could at the storm clouds crossing the young mans face. I had touched a nerve. What he apparently doesn't understand, is that if Jack Phillips has to design a cake with whatever message on it the customer asks for, then another baker will have to design a cake with something celebrating the Ku Klux Klan, or something else offensive to everyone.

I think some people just don't think beyond the first step.

I wished the young men luck and moved on. Higher, I tried to offer my pole to a woman clutching the snow, but she was too proud to take it. Later, a man saw me walking towards him on the snow and said "stop! stop!" He apparently didn't understand that I would just come near him and kick steps around him on the side. He thought that a track in the snow is prepared by a guide or something, and so two people simply aren't allowed to meet.

Higher, a nice Indian man said there is a snowfield high on the peak, but you can easily go around it. I moved more slowly on the ridge crest, having climbed more than 2000 meters to this point, but enjoyed the scrambling quite a bit.

On top I met a couple from Tokyo, very nice.

Sadly, the air was so hazy, just no good for pictures, darn it!

On top with Japanese couple

A summit view

On the way down, I glissaded from the snowfield, first alarming some people hanging on for dear life that I would just bomb straight down. They were about to be mad at me that I cut in front of them. Haha, I'm a rather cheeky person today...

I wished the two Americans luck, the young lawyer had recovered his equilibrium. They had a ways to go to the summit but should make it and I hope they did. Hopefully they were sleeping overnight at the Edelhütte.

Again, bombing down the snow, running in great strides and sometimes skiing on my shoes. At the Hütte, I ordered a beer and Kaiserscharmn, and enjoyed a cigar and the absolutely beautiful book the Science of Yoga by I. K. Taimni.

From around Mittelleger on the descent

A huge descent down by Hochleger and Mittelleger to the Niederleger at the Gasthof Alpenrose, for a Radler. Now I was pretty beat, but still on my feet! After some wonderful reading (and finishing my cigar), I continued, this time following road east and down fairly gently to intersect my starting trail.

About 2300 meters up and down. What a great day, the only improvement could have been clear, crisp air!